It’s a lot to ask a technologist to go eight days without his laptop. Sending him out for a week with only a smartphone is like sending a soldier to war with only a pistol. And sending him to stay in a rural house with no broadband, no neighbors with wireless, and cell coverage that equals one bar of service, with no data, and only when stood outside – that’s sending him out with a pistol and no bullets.<\/p>\n
Thankfully, the excuses to hit the road were plentiful. We got to have drinks at an actual W-affiliated hotel in the unlikeliest of places, we got dinner at two different Frank Stitt restaurants in the company of fellow alumni (and Team Black Swan East, natch), we did a little driving and a little shopping and fought some holiday traffic, and had a surprisingly non-disastrous time with the relations.<\/p>\n
Lessons learned:<\/p>\n
* Cousin Pa is exactly the sort of moron you would expect a 70-year-old who DVRs the entire Fox News Channel weeknight lineup to be. He’s interested in buying some of my old guns. I’m uncertain whether it’s moral to make a bunch of money off the Obama-hating paranoia of an old racist prick, especially when there’s a non-zero chance of seeing the wrong end of those guns someday.<\/p>\n
* No amount of time in the old land will ever be enough for my mother, who after eight days wanted to know why we couldn’t stay the second week if we were off work. Here’s a hint: if my consecutive time in Alabama ever hits double-digits again, somebody has died, or else somebody needs to come shoot me.<\/p>\n
* You’ll never convince a hick that Scharffen-Berger baking chocolate is superior to the liquid squeeze-pack stuff from the Piggly Wiggly.<\/p>\n
* Don’t look for quality radio in a town that has two 24-hour sports stations AND Rush Limbaugh on FM.<\/p>\n
* I am ruined forever for public transit. The thought of having to drive everywhere, all the time, and at least twenty minutes in each direction for ANYTHING – I’m getting the shakes just thinking about it.<\/p>\n
* The right combination of wardrobe, music, and box-of-stuff-out-in-the-garage will convince you that you are much younger than you really are. The practicality of this is left as an exercise for the reader.<\/p>\n
* The iPhone is still the Magic Phone by which all others are measured, but it is not suitable for the full use of Facebook, long-form blogging, or really getting the most out of a James Bond movie.<\/p>\n
* The Redskins are GHASTLY.<\/p>\n
* Cal can’t fire their offensive line coach soon enough for me.<\/p>\n
* The Mercedes M-class is a piece of shit to drive, and anybody who thought you could build a real Mercedes in Alabama was full of it.<\/p>\n
* Your relatives will call your bluff and buy you a Nerf sword as a Christmas present right as somebody launches a terrorist attack on a plane that makes taking said sword back damn near impossible.<\/p>\n
* The TSA may actually be sobering up as far as the wet-your-pants response to terrorism. The GOP, sadly, probably never will.<\/p>\n
* A peacoat – especially one you got for $37 – is not the optimal piece of outerwear for the South in December, no matter how stylish you think it might look. Get something more collapsable.<\/p>\n
* Southwest Airlines isn’t as bad as it used to be.<\/p>\n
And most important:<\/p>\n
* The relief of being on the plane, and the elation of being back in California, and the happiness of just driving through In N Out for a double-double plain, may be a sure sign that Silicon Valley is your home now, and you are absolutely in the right place.<\/p>\n
More later.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
It’s a lot to ask a technologist to go eight days without his laptop. Sending him out for a week with only a smartphone is like sending a soldier to war with only a pistol. And sending him to stay in a rural house with no broadband, no neighbors with wireless, and cell coverage that … <\/p>\n